by Ben Galley
There was a fiendish glimmer in the widow’s eyes, as if she were a witch seeing a curse take hold. I saw the sisters exchange disturbed glances.
‘Who are you, curse it?’ Sisine yelled again, red-faced and blood a-boil. It seemed she and I were the only ones who hadn’t figured it out yet.
Horix played offended, though I could see the grin hiding beneath. She shook her head, standing as tall as her crooked frame allowed. ‘I’m disappointed, Sisine. You should listen to Etane. Why, don’t you recognise your own grandmother? Shame on you. It has only been… what? Some twenty years?’
Sisine’s shaking stopped.
Etane ceased his pawing, rolling his eyes.
The sisters raised their chins.
My mouth fell open a fraction, maybe two, and struggled to rise back up. The old bat used to be an empress. The depth of her patience was highly impressive, in a dark and insidious way. The smoking ruins of Sisine’s Cloud Court took on a profounder meaning.
The widow’s torn black skirts, wet with blood, dragged across the rubble as she swaggered forwards, painting ugly, random smears behind her. She took six paces, and stamped her foot.
‘HERE!’ Horix cawed. ‘Here is where your father – my fuckwit of a son – decided to make his name. Butchered my husband Milizan in front of his throne, with the Cult looking on, all agape and useless. A fair claim, if not a necessary one. Milizan was losing his mind to the ideals of Sesh.’ She spat the name like a grape seed. ‘But the male Talin Renalas have always been lacking in the department of the mind, and my own son Farazar saw fit to banish me, didn’t he? To the very edges of the Far Reaches, where sand is a thing of dream, and ice dominates all. He banished me! The very mother who raised him on her own teat, instead of some wheedling wet-nurse! I should have struck my son over the head and let his body crumple over his father’s, and dragged them both to the Grand Nyxwell myself. He was a snivelling brat then, and as an emperor, waging war from his tower, he is no different! My son hides even now, does he not? Even though he must have sensed my arrival in his precious Sanctuary. You ask who I am, Granddaughter? You, who would follow in his footsteps?’ Horix curled her lip. ‘I have watched you for years. You are undeserving. You are unworthy. You’re a snivelling quim if ever I saw one!’
I fought not to whistle. I felt the sting in that and I had been a bystander. A non-consenting one, but still. The room bristled. Sisine began to shake again, her shock overcome by rage.
Horix beat her chest. ‘I am Hirana Ash Renala, widow of Emperor Milizan Talin Renala the Fifteenth, and I have come to claim what is rightfully mine!’ she yelled.
I preferred Horix. It was less of a mouthful.
To Sisine’s credit, she didn’t let her grandmother steal the light for long. She waded through the rubble, arms wide and fists clenched. ‘Your time is long past, old hag! My father no doubt saw the wickedness in you and decided to save the kingdom from it! It is my time to rule! My birthright! My future, not yours!’
Horix—Hirana was laughing. I saw a new side of this woman, no longer the widow I had known. It was as if I had always known her in shadow, and she had just stepped into a sunbeam. It didn’t make her glow, or gleam, but highlighted just how deep the crags and scars were. I had fought for my freedom for barely a month. Here was a woman who had fought for twenty years to stand here, and have her day in the sun.
‘Is that so?’ she asked.
Before I knew it, she was marching back to me. Hirana pawed at my half-coin with her talon-like fingers, managing to pry it away from me despite my avid struggling and foul-mouthed protests. She held it up for all to see, dangling on its broken chain. I could have murdered her right there and then, just for how fleeting she had made my freedom. She took my coin as I had taken it from her. The soldier held me tight, even waggling a knife in my face.
‘I own the locksmith now!’ Hirana shouted.
Fuck it. I shot a desperate look to the sisters, Sisine, even Danib, but none of them moved a muscle, until Enlightened Sister Liria held up a blue hand.
‘Calm, Empress Hirana.’
‘Calm? This is no time for calm.’ Hirana put her arm around me, and the knife to my already savaged neck. ‘I’ll kill him, and neither of us will have the throne,’ she threatened.
‘Then how will you open the Sanctuary, Grandmother?’ Sisine said, with all the spite in the world.
Hirana pouted, veins in her crinkled old forehead throbbing as she thought. She stared about, counting, weighing, listening to the sounds of reinforcements gradually stacking up beyond the doors.
‘A temporary truce, then,’ she suggested, words as bitter as dirt. ‘When he is of no importance any more, then we can decide.’
Charming, I thought, at the coldness of that statement. ‘Any more’ had such a sharp and murderous ring to it. I had been so keen to tackle the Sanctuary, I hadn’t considered my worth and freedom after I had cracked it. Or if I couldn’t. All I had was a thin promise from the sisters, and after their ploy, it had just gotten thinner. I wanted to gulp.
Etane leaned into Sisine’s ear while Yaridin and Liria shared a long and silent stare with each other.
Hirana soon ran out of patience. ‘I’m waiting! Or shall we decide here and now? With swords and spears?’
At her words, Hirana’s remaining soldiers banged their spears on the ground in perfect unison. I always found it surprising that when a soldier was faced with a very slim chance of surviving, often they would not cower, but instead rise up and embrace the berserker. I had seen it with drunks, half-beaten to a pulp in an alley, or in taverns when a pickpocket is caught and chased. Extraordinary things will happen at extraordinary times, and the day you die is far from ordinary, even if it’s the second time you’re dying.
Sisine took some time replying. I could almost see the hatred and anger fighting to burst from her, but to her credit, she restrained herself. ‘Truce,’ she hissed, looking to the Cult.
‘Truce,’ chimed the sisters. Beside them, Danib threw down his half a spear. ‘Though we stand with the empress-in-waiting.’
Without another word, the three sides knitted together into tight bundles of steel and sharp edges. Like dancers with plague, they circled around each other, remaining as far apart as possible, until they had reached the doors.
Sisine went first, still too untrusting of the Cult ghosts to have them walk anywhere near her, especially now they had picked up discarded blades. Then came Hirana, and then the Cult. With open mouths, the Royal Guard reinforcements watched the strange procession of enemies filter out of the door, one by one. I would have shared their amazement if I didn’t still have a knife to my throat. Sisine ordered the guards back down the hallway as per Hirana’s threats. Etane shoved those too confused to remember where their legs were. The empress-in-waiting was still in charge, at least for now.
Every now and again, a spear would touch and everybody would freeze, swapping wary glances. The tension was unbearable. Flesh and vapour prickled under armour. Like duelling crabs, we edged along the corridors and up several floors into the peak of the Cloudpiercer.
‘You thought you could escape me and leave me for dead, didn’t you, Caltro?’ Hirana whispered in my ear. ‘Tough luck.’
I had no fear of or respect for her by this point, and therefore cheek was all that remained. I remembered how much she enjoyed it. ‘And you thought you could fly in here and take the throne with no trouble, Horix. How’s that going?’
Her blade nicked my throat and pain shot across my shoulders.
‘Guess you’d better open the Sanctuary and find out.’
When I could, I looked to the Cult’s glowing, red-robed formation. I always found at least one of the sisters meeting my eye. They were blank as virgin papyrus, but they seemed to beg trust. I begrudgingly, or rather hopefully, gave it to them.
It took an age for the standoff to extricate itself from the crowds of Royal Guards, and climb the stairwells to the uppermost levels of the Cloudpiercer.
At long last, we came to a long, empty corridor that held the Sanctuary at its end. With an intoxicating mixture of excitement and trepidation running through me, I stared at the large, ornate wooden door set deep into the sandstone, and itched to know what lay beyond. So confident was Farazar in the vault’s construction that he had just a handful of guards to watch his Sanctuary. Four soldiers in full battle armour, bright gold and turquoise, stood before it. They looked somewhat perturbed to find such a varied horde gathered at their post. Their spears were low and pointed at us, and I had to credit the soldiers for how steady they held them.
My practised eyes were already looking for keyholes amidst the lacquered wood, copper and gold filigree, but I found only handles instead. It was purely ceremonial. I stared at its foreign carvings, wondering who was special enough to be emblazoned on the emperor’s door.
‘Move,’ ordered Sisine.
The tallest of the emperor’s soldiers spoke up, voice cracking. They had seen the size of Danib, blocking out most of the sunlight in the grand hallway. ‘We cannot move for any order but the emperor’s,’ he proclaimed.
‘I am the empress-in-waiting.’
‘We cannot move,’ the soldier repeated, evidently wishing he could.
‘Allow us,’ said Liria. Danib stretched his arms, to a grinding of steel plates.
‘No. Etane,’ Sisine said, and with a sigh, her house-shade raised his sword.
‘Unavoidable, chaps,’ he told them as he closed the gap between us and the Royal Guard.
‘Stay back!’ the soldier yelled as the ghost started to weave his giant sword in sweeping arcs. The blade looked vaguely familiar, a mix of grey steel and obsidian, and with silver on its handle. The sword must have been five feet long, but Etane made it look as weightless as a breadstick. Mist emanated from the blade, curling around the crossguards and over Etane’s gauntlet, mixing with his vapours.
Etane was as spry as he was merciless. The first soldier came at him, shield up and spear flat, jabbing rapidly. Etane lunged beneath the spear thrust and brought his sword up under the shield, cutting the legs from beneath the man. He fell with a scream, painting the white marble with blood.
The next soldier leapt high, hoping to skewer Etane, but the ghost sidestepped and swung the blade behind him as the woman passed, slashing through her armoured neck.
The third guard had his spear halved, halved again, and the giant sword driven through his shield as if it were papyrus.
When only the fourth remained, he took a different approach, laying his shield and spear down and prostrating himself on the marble.
Etane tutted. ‘No honour.’ The huge sword came down, a thunderbolt of dark steel, and impaled the man where he lay. The sword bit into the marble with disturbing, and somewhat familiar, ease.
Wrenching it free, the ghost turned back to us, gave Danib a wry look, and sauntered back to Sisine’s side.
‘After you, then, Grandmother.’ Sisine pointed to the door.
‘Unlikely. I know your kind, snake. I birthed the reptile that spawned you. You open it. Have Caltro go in.’
I spoke up. ‘Not to dampen anybody’s enthusiasm, but I will need tools.’
A cloth pouch was produced from within the Cult’s group and passed forwards. I was released to go and seize it, and I walked silently alone, three phalanxes of spears and shields surrounding me. The largest challenge of my life or death was in front of me, and my chances of walking away were nil. I felt a sinking feeling, one that I hadn’t felt since seeing the earl’s son run through by a guard’s sword. It was the sense of failure, and I hadn’t even seen the emperor’s vault yet.
I took the pouch, pausing. I knew even without opening it. The weight was as familiar as a handshake. ‘My tools?’
‘Danib was kind enough to retrieve them from Temsa’s tower, Caltro,’ said Liria softly, making the nearby brute grunt begrudgingly.
‘I thought they had been lost for good.’
‘Get on with it!’ yelled the widow.
My eyes returned to the door as two soldiers kicked it open. Its two halves opened with a sonorous groan, revealing a small antechamber, a solitary bench, and a gold and copper display of intricacy and design that I had never seen the like of.
I have knelt before countless doors and vaults. Keyholes, latches, bolts, levers and dials in their thousands have been broken by my fingers. There was not a design I had not studied or leafed over. In the Far Reaches, there was not a method of keeping me out besides a brick wall and no door at all. My tools were my sword and shield; time and somebody else’s ingeniousness, my enemies. And yet, gazing at Farazar’s Sanctuary, what little I had left of a heart sank.
It was the grandest lock I had ever laid eyes on. Just roaming over its curves and patterns made me feel like a freshpick. Gold light spilled from plated sconces set into the plain marble above the Sanctuary door, setting aglow scenes of battles and hordes of subjects prostrate before pyramids. Desert flowers unfurled across its face, wrapping around a seal of a spiked crown and a half-coin. Five holes were spread across the vault’s centre in a circle, surrounded by jewels and more gold filigree. Between their points shone a fist of amber diamond.
Already, my thief’s mind was going to work. My keen eyes picked out thin seams for tiny openings, likely for passing things through the door. The hinges were buried deep behind the stone and metal, both of which I judged to be at least a yard thick. Nothing had been bolted or screwed, but cast and welded with fire. There were no plates to pry free. No boxes of mechanical workings to break open.
I raced over old memories of every vault I’d ever broken. There were many, but few as worrisome as this.
‘Well?’ said a voice. It took me a moment to realise it was Sisine’s. I felt the warm prickle of eyes again. ‘Hurry up, locksmith!’
A murmur of agreement came from Hirana. Liria and Yaridin stayed silent and impassive. I walked into the antechamber to the sound of armoured feet shuffling and deep breaths being taken. Stepping around the bench, I found a large number of scrolls on the marble floor, still sealed with wax and starting to pile up.
I thought of the emperor himself, lurking behind this door. I imagined him with an ear to the metal, listening to his would-be assassins clamouring for his life. No doubt he was smug and secure in the knowledge that his Sanctuary could not be broken. That image steeled me. I adored proving others wrong. Especially the man who had locked himself up so tightly it needed me to pry him free. Me. The best locksmith in the Far Reaches.
Evalon Everass could go fuck herself.
I flicked open the lip of the pouch, trying to block out all the eyes peering at me. All the bated breaths. All the desire and pressure piling up at the entrance behind me. This was not about them. Nor Araxes. Nor the Reaches. This was about me and a door. It always had been, and it was now.
The gold lantern-light dimmed at the edges of my vision. Sounds heightened. I heard every sniff and impatient shuffle.
With measured movements, I pushed the scrolls aside and stood before the crest. I moved slowly, tracing my fingers across its gold surface, its patterns, its steel desert flowers. The gold was warm beneath my cold touch, and I left a gentle smear of cold mist behind on the metal and its intricate holes. They were keyholes, just as expected, belonging to keys that I had a strong suspicion were locked behind the vault’s door. I probed the holes, finding their inner workings well-hidden and recessed deep behind the gold. I found another seam encircling them. I tapped the metal, I even kicked it to listen to the vibrations, and then, like glimpsing an enemy’s battle plans, I realised the Sanctuary’s workings. My next moments unfurled before me.
Five-key entry.
Sunken deeplocks.
Glass cylinders.
Cyclical rotating mechanism with freezing tumblers.
Encompassing master dial structure.
Shattering foul-plates.
And…
No. I should have been sweating profusely by now. I checked ag
ain, tapping here, thumping there, pressing my vapours against the metal to see where they felt cold. I stepped backwards, shivering instinctively even though I had no skin to prickle.
… and a deadlock.
I should have guessed the finest vault in the Reaches would have the finest lock known to thieves, dead or alive.
‘What is it?’ Hirana snapped at me.
‘This vault has a deadlock.’
‘So?’
‘A deadlock. Don’t you remember?’
‘Just get on with it!’ yelled the widow.
The Sanctuary was the work of not one vaultsmith, but of many. A collective genius for me to battle, and they had poured every trick they knew into it, including a deadlock. Rarer than rare, only the second I had ever encountered, yet here it was. A survivor of a simpler time, a magic before mechanisms and clockwork had taken over.
‘This door will kill anyone who tries to open it without the keys,’ I said in a louder voice.
Sisine huffed. ‘What are you talking about, shade?’
I snapped at her over my shoulder. ‘A deadlock, princess. Like I said. Half a ghost, a soul split in two, and bound into the door. It’s always hungry for more, and it strips the soul out of anyone who doesn’t open it right.’
‘Get to work, Caltro,’ said Hirana, waving her hand dismissively.
‘It will kill me!’
‘You don’t have a choice.’
‘I won’t die again, just for all of your greed,’ I cried out, staring at each of them.
‘Then open it right, Caltro,’ said Liria, impossibly calm over the hissing and cursing of granddaughter and grandmother. There was no threat in her voice, simply advice, and I took it for all it was worth. ‘You are more gifted than you think.’
Fuck it, I told myself. It was a motto that had brought me this far, and I trusted in it once again.
Facing the door, letting the calm descend once more, I slid my tools from the pouch and looked at my weapons. I grasped them tightly before I began, feeling how soft their edges were against my vapours. With a series of precise movements, I snapped the tools into a long lockpick. I concentrated, closing my eyes, and held it up before me like a sword.